pleasure my very limited concept of that original Understanding (which
I can base on my limited knowledge of the world), of the Might of that
original Being in actualising its Ideas, and of its Will to do so, and
complete this into the Idea of an Allwise, Infinite Being? If this is
to be done theoretically, it would presuppose omniscience in me, in
order to see into the purposes of nature in their whole connexion, and
in addition the power of conceiving all possible plans, in comparison
with which the present plan would be judged on [sufficient] grounds
as the best. For without this complete knowledge of the effect I can
arrive at no determinate concept of the Supreme Cause, which can only
be found in the concept of an Intelligence infinite in every respect,
_i.e._ the concept of a Deity, and so I can supply no foundation for
Theology.
Hence, with every possible extension of physical Teleology, according
to the propositions above laid down we may say: By the constitution
and the principles of our cognitive faculty we can think of nature, in
its purposive arrangements which have become known to us, in no other
way than as the product of an Understanding to which it is subject.
But the theoretical investigation of nature can never reveal to us
whether this Understanding may not also, with the whole of nature and
its production, have had a final design (which would not lie in the
nature of the sensible world). On the contrary, with all our knowledge
of nature it remains undecided whether that Supreme Cause is its
original ground according to a final purpose, or not rather by means
of an Understanding determined by the mere necessity of its nature to
produce certain forms (according to the analogy of what we call the
art-instinct in animals); without it being necessary to ascribe to
it even wisdom, much less the highest wisdom combined with all other
properties requisite for the perfection of its product.
Hence Physico-theology is a misunderstood physical Teleology, only
serviceable as a preparation (propaedeutic) for Theology; and it is
only adequate to this design by the aid of a foreign principle on which
it can rely, and not in itself, as its name would intimate.
§ 86. _Of Ethico-theology_